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Friday, September 19, 2014

Scamp Camp - preparations

I knew August was going to be hectic.

I had spent July preparing; I added a trailer hitch and light harness to my Jetta. I added a light harness to the other vehicle because I really didn't know which one we'd take to Port Townsend. I bought as many boat building tools and supplies as I reasonably could. The camp attendees all got a list of tools to bring and everyone who has ever seen my garage knows that I don't mind buying tools.

I had a big pile of boxes full of tools, rubber gloves, brushes, rollers, etc. in my garage ready to be packed into the car.

I had some business travel in early August that always takes me away for a week. Quincy was going to join me for a few days and fly home with me on Sunday 10.aug. We'd have to pick up my dad at the airport. Then we could actually make it to scamp camp, which started at 8:00AM Monday.

Quincy and my flight was scheduled to arrive Sunday at 12:30PM. Dad had arrived around 9:30 and was waiting for us at the airport.

We went home where Nancy had made us a nice lunch.

I was fussing about our trip up to Port Townsend. I had to repack my clothing and gear, then I had to fit 3 full size humans, 3 kayaks (2 17 foot kayaks and an Oru), a tent and sleeping bag, and all the boat building supplies that I had collected into my little Jetta.

Tight fit.

I wish I had a picture of the Jetta totally loaded down. The 17 foot kayaks on top of the 13 foot car look funny anyway, now put 500lbs of dude and 100lbs of tool in it and it was riding low.

But we shoved it all in there. Luckily we had the kayaks; we put a lot of supplies in the hatches. We knew we needed groceries, but didn't have much extra room and decided we'd deal with it later. Once it was all together, we gave hugs and finally took off mid afternoon.

The drive up was uneventful but very pretty, as is the pacific northwest is during summer. And ferry rides are always fun. Good company and good discussions on the ride.

The biggest problem was that we all got hungry about 6:30. We ended up taking a slightly slower backroad in to Port Townsend and since it was a Sunday night, many places were closed in the small towns on the way. We were getting grumpy when we finally spied a local pizza joint. Perfect!

We unfolded out out of the Jetta (man, that car hasn't gotten any bigger in the 11 years I've owed it) and demolished a very good pizza.

Then, since I was a bit gruntled from the food, I said "Hey, there's a QFC just back there. Let's stop in there for 5 minutes and get some supplies. We'll need breakfast cereal, milk, peanut butter, bread, bagels, cream cheese. No more than 5 minutes."

Quincy took that as a challenge.

We all raced into the grocery store, and banged through the aisles to get everything we needed. For some reason, they hid the cream cheese from us, but we powered through and found it. We really were back out of that store after 5 minutes. It was the best kind of power shopping. I think dad was a bit bewildered; he's racing around in a completely new store along with a pair of wild-eyed nerds cracking jokes (as Quincy and I are wont to do). And to top it all off, in the parking lot was a fortune teller's wagon, brightly colored and gaudy.

Curiously enough, the epic 5 minute shopping trip story was one of the first stories Quincy unleashed when we got back. It really was hilarious.

We arrived at our little house in the forest a bit before 8:00. It was perfect. Not big, but it had everything we needed and it was in a nice area. (Although we were occasionally downwind of the pulp plant settling ponds. Let's just say sometimes Port Townsend can be odiferous.)

We did some unpacking and repacking of the car because we really didn't know what to expect the next day.

Then we crashed. It had been an exciting and stressful day. Tomorrow we were going to start something completely new and we didn't know what to expect. Challenge accepted.